Ruth T. Sherman

Ruth T. Sherman, 82, of Monroeville, died Sunday, July 10, 2005. Daughter of the late Arthur L. and Ellenor (Smith) Taylor, she was born in Providence, R.I., on April 21, 1923. After graduating from Central High School in Providence in 1941, she attended the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School. She worked as a secretary at the AMICA Insurance Co. in Providence and subsequently at their Boston office. In 1944, she married Herbert L. Sherman Jr., of Cranston, R.I., in South Carolina. From 1946 to 1948, she worked at various jobs in the Boston area while her husband was a student at Harvard Law School. In late 1948, she moved to Pittsburgh where her husband started his career as a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh. She and her husband traveled over the years, usually when her husband was on leave of absence from Pitt, to all continents and to most countries of the world. They lived in Belgium at two different times for four months each time where Ruth taught conversational English to people from various countries in Europe. In other years, she helped people in South America who needed medical help. And she taught conversational English in the evening to the Chinese crew on two of four trips on ships going around the world. For parts of many years in Pittsburgh, she tutored, on a one-on-one basis, numerous people from abroad. Many of these people were spouses of foreign professors or graduate students who needed help with conversational English. Some of these people were Iranian and Arab women. In Minnesota, for two nine-month periods, she tutored Cambodians in our language about our American culture. In 1994-95, she taught conversational English for five months to four grades of Chinese children in a private school, recently allowed by the communists, in a village near the Great Wall of China. Ruth was on a national television program in Beijing which was showing a variety of educational programs in China. She was a very compassionate person. She privately visited and assisted people in America who were lonely and dying. She would never accept compensation for any of her services although she did accept reimbursement of her travel costs to teach in China. She was a very religious person with a deep Christian faith. She was one of the founders of a women's Wednesday Bible Study in 1970 at her church, the Beulah Presbyterian Church, and she taught classes in this program for 28 years. Many of the women who attended came from other churches and other denominations. She was a devoted and committed mother and wife. She was available on a daily basis to comfort, guide and encourage her two sons while they were minors. She assisted and guided with motherly love and advice Faith Piper, a Jamaican-American foster daughter who is now an accountant living in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband and two sons, Leroy Jr. and William. For several years Ruth helped a Chinese student from Taiwan, named Alex King (Chwander in Chinese), who is now a business executive living with his wife and son in Bangkok, Thailand. For many years, she also helped a young Chinese man from Shanghai, China, with motherly love and guidance to persevere and obtain M.S., PhD and M.D. degrees in America. He is now Dr. Yao and is married to Mary Ellen. They live near Harrisburg. All these people called Ruth and her husband "Mom and Dad" (or Grandma and Grandpa). In her "spare" time she enjoyed oil painting, knitting, needlepoint and rug hooking. She is survived by her husband, Herb, their two sons and four grandchildren. One son, Dave, an attorney, and his two children, Jessica and Cody, live in California, near San Francisco. The other son, Bill, an engineer, his wife, Cheryl, and one daughter, Kelsey, live in Colorado. Their other daughter, Lindsey, lives in California. Ruth's sister Dorothy Johnson and her husband, Ralph Johnson, preceded her in death. A memorial service will be held late this summer at the Beulah Presbyterian Church in Churchill (located at Exit 10A off the Parkway East at the intersection of Beulah and McCrady roads). The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be made to the Beulah Presbyterian Church, 2500 McCrady Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15235; or to the Alzheimer's Association, 225 N. Michigan Ave., 17th Floor, Chicago, IL 60601-7633. Arrangements by the ENGLISH-BERTUCCI FUNERAL HOME INC., 378 Maryland Ave., Oakmont.